Summary for Chapters 1~2

Ruby football is a traditional game played in Stella Maris College and they play it the same way that it is played in Europe. When rugby football was first introduced to Uruguay, it wasn’t a popular sport at all but as time passed, one team becomes very good at it. The undefeated Old Christians have to go to Chile in order to play a bigger game. The team of men from ages eighteen to twenty-six goes to the airport and rides the Fairchild, No. 571. The team charters an airplane and since there are a few extra seats left, family members could go for free. It was scheduled that on Thursday the 12th of October 1972, they would leave to Chile but the weather near the Andes got harsh so they had to stop at Mendoza, Argentina. They had to wait as long as they could for the weather to get better but it is against regulations for an aircraft of foreign power to stay on Argentinian land for more than twenty-four hours so they either had to go back to Montevideo, Uruguay or move forward. The pilot assured that even though there is a strong wind, Fairchild would be okay because it is equipped with the latest technology. The boys trust the pilot and on Friday the 13th of October, they head to Santiago, Chile. On the way to Santiago, the pilot called Colonel Julio César Ferradas miscalculates and instead of going straight to there, turns North which goes further into the Andes mountains. The plane starts shaking a lot because of the different wind currents in the clouds but the pilot thinks they have reached Santiago and starts descending. As they come out of the clouds, they realize that they are surrounded by mountains but they are too late when they try to pull the plane back up. Fairchild crashes into one of the peaks of the mountains which breaks off one wing, the tail, and part of the roof of the plane. The plane lands on snow and starts sliding down. Once it stops, they see that twelve have died which includes the pilot, family members of the rugby team, and of the actual team. Canessa and Zerbino are the “doctors” for the team since they did learn the basis of medication. The remaining 33 survivors were mostly injured and so was Nando Parrado. They think that he is dead and so take him to the opening part of the plane. That way, the people alive can have more warmth. All the bodies that died are taken out the plane. A member called Enrique Platero is injured severely with a steel tube in his stomach. He says he doesn’t feel anything when Zerbino takes the tube out of his stomach even when parts of his guts come out. The copilot, Lieutenant Dante Hector Lagurara, keeps screaming that they have passed Curicó when actually, they haven’t. They ration out all the food they have which is only a few bottles of liquor and some small chocolates. Even if they divide the food so that they eat the least amount everyday, they only had enough food for two weeks. In order to find more clothes for warmth, a radio to communicate with the “outer world” and food, they need to find the tail. Carlitos Páez, Numa Turcatti and others head out to go over the mountains in order to locate the tail. They spend over an hour looking for it and come back with bad news. They couldn’t find the tail and are hopeless. Parrado starts talking about eating the pilot because that is the only way they will stay alive. They eventually find the tail and find bags with clothes. They also find the radio that they were looking for and get to grab a signal. The first thing they hear when they connect the radio is that the search for the lost Fairchild plane has been cancelled due to bad results.